1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to WAN mobility technologies and services.
2. Description of the Related Art
A mobile services control platform (MSCP) enables service providers to offer a range of services on mobile computing devices, such as laptops, PDAs, and smart phones. A representative mobile services control platform is described in commonly-owned, co-pending application Ser. No. 10/871,413, titled “Wi-Fi Service Delivery Platform for Retail Service Providers,” filed Jun. 18, 2004. As described in that application, the mobile services control platform enables service providers to enhance their existing wireless data offerings to include access over new networks (such as Wi-Fi) and new devices (such as laptops and PDAs), while still being part of a single subscriber profile. This enables service providers to offer to their existing subscribers a single account and single bill for all wireless services.
A representative mobile services control platform is available commercially from Tatara Systems, Inc. of Acton, Mass. This platform comprises a centrally deployed gateway server working in conjunction with a client component on a subscriber's mobile computing device. The client and server maintain a real-time, secure and bi-directional control channel that runs across any IP network. This architecture enables service providers to build their brands, maintain ownership of their customers and extend access to their IP-based services across multiple “home” and “roaming” access networks. The real-time, secure control channel allows service providers to securely authenticate customers, to collect diagnostic information in real-time from the user's device, to monitor and manage service level agreements (SLAs) with roaming partners, to support a broad range of pricing and payment options, and to deliver integrated converged mobile services.
It would be desirable to extend the functionality of a mobile services control platform to provide a message forwarding service for SMS and MMS data messages. SMS refers to Short Message Service, which is a text message service that enables short messages (e.g., generally no more than 140–160 characters in length) to be sent and transmitted from a mobile device. Another such service is MMS, the Multimedia Message Service, which extends SMS to provide for non-real-time transmission of various kinds of multimedia contents like images, audio, video clips, and the like, to MMS-capable handsets.